There I was, halfway between Oamaru and Christchurch, after closing my office an hour early to get to the nodermeet in time when BlackPawn's dulcid voice suddenly appeared on the Intercom: "Fruan has just cancelled!". The panic in the voice of this talented young noder clearly expressed his angst about being alone in that epitomy of urban desolation, so my mission was clear: Under no circumstances was I to turn around the Geekmobile to head back to the comfort of my seaside cottage to watch TV, drink beer and play with the rabbit:

No, a noder was lost in an environment that was clearly not suited for him and asking for my help, and after getting the necessary ok from the Co-Pilot (who nevertheless muttered that cancelling 1 1/2 hours before a mini-meet is rather "unfortunate" for the resulting party) I keyed in the secret combination to activate the Bi-Turbo and just 90 minutes later I spotted poor Blackpawn hiding behind a lamp post next to a bridge over the wildest river in New Zealand, clearly intimidated by large number of drunken yobs streaming out of a Young Farmers meeting. I grabbed the hapless Initiate by his flowing black locks and pulled him into one of the few bars without spittoons and sawdust on the floor. A young blond Sheila (clearly recognisable by the accent and the fact that she continued to address us as "guys". Guys? I always thought that after a certain age group and within certain academic achievements one would cease to be a "guy" and maybe transmogrify to become a "chap" or even "gentleman", but maybe wearing a Slashdot T-Shirt was just not a good idea) asked us what she could bring us, but as they didn't serve half a pig on toast and there were out of Franziskaner, we had to settle for beer from Auckland and some heathen dipping dish with alien looking meats, tasting almost, but not quite like like hungarian donkey sausage.

After the first couple of drinks, a clearly relieved BlackPawn started telling me about the past couple of days in that devastated wasteland that is Mid-Canterbury and it was clear that this noder was out of his comfort zone: craving the lights and security of Sydney, he was unhappy being immersed within this raw and unforgiven land. For 90 minutes I held his hand and fed him some comforting milkdrinks and slowly his fearful expression started to light up again. We swapped survival strategies and exchanged adresses before we finally headed out of the establishment, just to be almost floored by 20 young farmers on their way to the next meeting. We shook our heads.

If Fruan would have only been there: He would have shown us a good time.